It remains a mystery who actually came up with the acronym ‘ERNIE’ to mean Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment, but he is central to the whole concept of Premium Bonds by producing all the winning numbers.
Since 1957, the four generations of ERNIE have produced the numbers for over 110 million tax-free prizes worth over £7 billion.
The basic function of each ERNIE machine has not changed but, with continuous advances in technology, each ERNIE has been replaced by a faster and smaller model to keep pace with Premium Bond demand.
If ERNIE 1 was still being used today, he would take 52 days to complete a draw, compared to the two and-a-half hours taken by ERNIE 4. Each ERNIE has been in use for approximately 16 years.
In the UK, 23 million people place their trust in the integrity of ERNIE to produce Premium Bond numbers randomly. Around £26 billion is invested in Premium Bonds.
Premium Bonds are becoming more and more popular. In the last 10 years there has been a seven-fold increase in the number of Bonds in the draw. To cope with this increase, since June 2005 Premium Bonds have had 11 digits– older Bonds have 8, 9 or 10 digits – and ERNIE 4 is capable of producing all four variations of Bond numbers.
To find out more about ERNIE, visit his Myspace profile. Please remember if you want to check for unclaimed prizes use our prize checker. NS&I does not endorse companies which charge customers a fee to search for lost or forgotten money on their behalf.
ERNIE made his public debut in 1957, when ‘he’ was the size of a van. In 1972, a faster ERNIE 2 was launched, capable of producing more Premium Bond numbers. He was decommissioned in 1988 and ERNIE 3, the size of a personal computer, took over. But by 2004 an increase in the volume of Premium Bond numbers meant a new machine was needed. We now have ERNIE 4.
As with any celebrity figure, over the years some myths have grown up around ERNIE and Premium Bonds. Here are a few of them exploded.
Myth 1: “ERNIE is not random”
The randomness of ERNIE and the Premium Bond draw is certified by the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD). Each month, the results of the draw are sent to GAD which carries out a number of statistical tests. Once it is satisfied the results of the draw are random, GAD issues NS&I with a certificate to that effect. Without this, NS&I is not allowed to publish the numbers or issue Premium Bond prizes.
Myth 2: “You have to have £30,000 Premium Bonds to win the jackpot”
In July 2004, the winner of the £1 million jackpot had just £17 in Premium Bonds, purchased in 1959, and 8 of the last 12 jackpot winners held less than the £30,000 maximum. The more Bonds held, the better the chances of winning, but this doesn’t mean prizes are won exclusively by higher value holdings.
Myth 3: “Only new Bonds win prizes”
Each £1 Bond number has an equal chance of winning, regardless of when it was bought. Bonds purchased more recently may seem to win more often, but this is because there are more new Bonds than old ones. Since the £1 million jackpot prize was introduced in April 1994, more Bonds have been sold in the past seven years than in the previous 44 years put together.
Myth 4: “Old Bonds are left out of the draw”
Premium Bond numbers are not programmed into or stored in ERNIE, so no numbers can be left out of the draw. ERNIE’s sole function is to generate numbers randomly. These are then matched against the existing eligible Bond numbers.
Myth 5: “Only Premium Bonds from the South East win prizes”
It may appear that holders in the South East win more prizes, but this is simply because there are more Premium Bonds held in the South East, compared to the rest of the UK.
In the last year, the £1 million jackpot winners have been from the East Riding of Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, Worcestershire, Devon, Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Cumbria, Surrey, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, the London Borough of Newham and Bristol.
Randomness is where the outcome of an event is not predetermined.
For Premium Bonds, this means that winning a prize depends on the random production of numbers by ERNIE.
Because ERNIE cannot be programmed, the numbers produced cannot be predetermined and each number produced has been generated independently of any other number. This means that each single Premium Bond number has an equal chance of winning a prize.
Each month, ERNIE produces many more numbers than prizes available. He will produce more than 2 million numbers, of which some 1 million will win prizes. This is because some numbers produced will be for Premium Bonds not yet bought or previously cashed in.
The output of each draw is checked independently by the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD). It uses four methods of testing – Frequency, Serial, Poker and Correlation – to make sure the output has followed no set patterns, because any set pattern would suggest a bias. If no such pattern is discernible then the draw is determined to be random. A certificate is issued by GAD to verify the randomness of the draw.
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